Good luck with that election thing, you eager Iraqi electorate. Why don't we get the grape juice stained finger here for American elections? "I Voted" my ass. Actually, I would vote for my ass, but I suspect that if elected it would not serve. Blah blah blah you eat the links now. Moderately slow week in this department, but I posted about other unexpected dross this week like the trooper I am, so consider yourself fortunate. Fortunate I said. You're not looking fortunate enough. You heard me. Make with the fortunating.

As it says, this is really mean, but it's too funny to pass up the cheap shot.

Can't have pets in the office? Then toss the Ball around with this strangely endearing little creature. Bad Mags is a wonderfully sleazy collection of wonderfully sleazy pulp and nudie mags--worth it for the cover art alone. Microhumor: All the bacon in the world. Reminiscent of the legendary Super-Friends-dubbed-with-Wassup is Legion of Dogs, which combines the esteemed Legion of Doom with Messr. Tarantino. Here's Bushes, a poignant and moving documentary film depicting an assortment of fine ladies getting "the wax." Don't worry, only their faces are shown, and it's still worth it. And this is a priceless Playstation ad that shows pornstar hardbodies predating upon hapless herds of golfers during a vulnerable water crossing. Why? Well, it does seem natural somehow. (via)

Goofy weatherpeople are a dime a dozen, but I think you'll agree that this fellow is worth at least two dimes. "There's a town called FINGER?!?!" (via)

Best Alarm Clock Ever: the Sfera, a shimmering, musical globe that hangs from the ceiling and must be slapped to snooze. But with each snooze, it retracts a little further away, forcing you to reach higher and higher. Aren't you glad you didn't invest in twelve-foot ceilings? (via)

And to finish, why did it take so long for someone to create Hieronymus Bosch figurines? If only they were fully poseable, though I've no idea where you'd put the joints. You'd need the hellish dreamscape panorama playset too, of course ... (via)

These are truly wondrous times in which to live. I highly recommend this article about chimeras, or human-animal hybrids. At last, I'll be able to get those octopus tentacles I've always wanted! As usual, it's a bunch of squirmy ethicist types who can't stand the fact that human beings and animals are just a great big genetic amusement park well suited to smushing together all kinds of nutty monstrosities for our collective use and/or entertainment. Of course such research should be allowed for medical reasons, as I'm prepared to give quite a few man-rats a nice dose of Alzheimer's if it keeps me from losing my marbles later on. But just like the cloning debates a few years back, I really never imagined I'd be reading lines like these in my lifetime, taken from the linked article:

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice. "Most people would find that problematic," [David] Magnus said, "but those uses are bizarre and not, tothe best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is remotely contemplating." (Nice qualifier there, Dave.)

The U.S. Department of Defense has generously funded initial research to create scorpions that can operate digital cameras and cell phones in order to assist with desert reconnaissance operations. (Okay, I made this one up, but continuing:)

Later this year [Irv Weissman] may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice. Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if the architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for traces of human cognitive behavior. Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an animal body.

Suuuuure you're not, Irv ... and is that a tentacle fused to your spinal column, or are you just happy to see me? And does the killing of the embryonic chimera mice constitute abortion? A double whammy for fundamentalists and conservative bioethicists. Nevertheless, the state of Texas has already issued a press release reaffirming the state's right to execute any human-brained mice found guilty of capital crimes, regardless of testable intelligence quotient or lack thereof.

A 10-pound meteorite crashes in Cambodia. Proving that any event can be boiled down to contentious issue-driven debate, provincial police chief Sok Sareth (shown here with meteorite perp safely in custody) describes the results of a straw poll among local villagers:

"Some farmers are angry with the rock because it caused fires and destroyed several hundred hectares of their paddy fields." [...] "But others asked the police to leave it where it landed and put it on shrine to pray for peace."

Sounds like it's getting all blue state/red state over there in the former Kampuchea. Some farmers angry with rock! Others love rock! Space rock bad! Or space rock good? If only "Crossfire" hadn't been canceled. We need you, Tucker Carlson! No shrine for the rock apparently, as Chief Sareth is hoping it will bequeath upon him rad space powers. Sadly, that never happened to my fellow Alabamian Ann Hodges when the otherwise (and subsequently) unremarkable housewife got walloped by a meteorite in 1954 ... all she got was a big honkin' contusion. Such meteorite-on-human violence is extremely rare, and in fact meteorites seem to more often hit buildings, dogs, cows, horses, etc. Regardless, as Wil Milan noted dryly on Space.com, "But compared with the number of horses, dogs and housewives killed or struck by myriad other objects and collisions ... being clobbered by a meteor is an extremely remote possibility." No reliable data on bequeathement of rad space powers.

Three words: Big Metal Ass. While my NYC comrades thrashed weakly in snowbanks and my beloved C train succumbed to the predations of a homeless and as yet uncaptured pyromaniac (I'm looking at you, FPP), I was back in Birminghamme to celebrate my progenitors' 50th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe ... half a century and my parents are still luxuriating in their Brad-and-Jen phase. But in addition to that, the Girlfriend Attorney and I bummed around under sunny skies and 65-degree days. It turned into a rejuvenating little mini-vacation.

But of course it took three attempts to score a flight back into La Guardia, so I'm late and behind and overworked and underfed. Plus there's another Gala Festival of Dreadful Futility this week, or whatever they want to call some big meeting I'm forced to attend. Boils down to another week of light posting for you and another round of Everclear and Gatorade cocktails por moi. So hold your breath for a little while longer. And don't forget the Ass. Never forget the Ass.

Short and sweet and good to eat today, as I gotta run catcha plane thing. Regular posting may/should/could return next week.

Funnier than it has any right to be: Super Jam, which grafts any face-photo you upload to a cartoonish dancin' fool that you can somewhat control. Use your own, your friends', or crop something from the news. Hours of family fun. Here's a vertiginous 3D version of the classic Snake arcade game of yore; best perused after indulging in a candy flip. Ask yourself: is there anything cooler than smoking? The answer is no, according to a wide range of celebrities and cartoon characters at the Video Vault. Not to be missed are the Flintstones enjoying a relaxing Winston break. Get it? Flintstones/Winstons! No doubt some unfortunate primordial beast was forced to roll those smokes in its dinosaur bunghole, per Flintstones animalistic technology. A nice and tah-rippy Gorillaz video featuring good ol' Pazuzu, animated by my fave Jamie Hewlitt as is usual for the band. Last is What If ..., an obsessively detailed visual depiction of all the different ways the creator's life might have turned out. (via)

Invisibilia is a series of mundane photos with the subject people replaced with line-art versions of themselves. Surreal in the best sense. (via)

You're down with tsunami cleanup, right? But you can't really put together a trip to Banda Aceh? Well, that's all right. You and the kids both can help out with this startlingly inane and trivializing tsunami cleanup game, from none other than the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fortunately, I guess the seal and starfish done et all the corpses already. And what kind of "man" would I be if I did not end with a link to the above-sampled pictures of Lindsay Lohan spitting up? Instant classic. (via)

Cassini and Huygens are quite the pair of bewigged nonces, are they not? And to think they made it all the way to Saturn. I could have done that, you know, if I wanted. Poofs. Just because Old Europe is in space doens't mean we have to listen to them. Why, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Bosnia and Albania are launching rockets in conjunction with the Air Force Space Command. That's where the action is, wig boy.

I'm really grooving to this low-impact posting schedule. Aren't you? I've gotten ever so much done here in the hives. The drone who whips me on Fridays even said there might be a little royal jelly waiting when he stuffs me into my storage bin tonight! It's gonna be a hot and heavy weekend. Surprisingly light on the links this week, which may be why I found the time to bother. Don't you love it when I prove to you how much I care? Because I do. I find you lovable and wonderful. In your way. Don't believe me? Then take a poll.

Because I am not only a nerd, but also an English major nerd, I was quite taken with the Historic Tale Construction Kit. Curious Man: What have ye there on the chopping block, fine fellow? Butcher Bjoernf: Thy wyfe's entraylf, guvnor! Curious Man: Zoundf! Remember the yeti-slaps-penguin game? What if the yeti used a spiked club? And what if the penguin was decapitated on striking? And oh, what the hell, what if there were landmines? Enjoy. (My record is 906.2.) But never mind that, it's TIME TO BONE. Warning: contains Leggo bukkake (Leggakke?) among other perversions. Here's a product sure to put the sparkle where the sparkle doesn't normally belong. In the Games Division: Is-Just-What-It-Sounds-Like-Department: Chainsaw the Children. Milder, puppy-loving souls can be mildly thrilled by Tobby; the goal is get your pup upward by moving his trampoline back and forth, then pulling down to launch him skyward without hitting the spiky bits. (via)

Diztopia will degenerate into an irregular posting schedule for the next few weeks, as I try to cobble together various projects and enforce a (three-year-old) New Year's resolution to get back to work on the novel. Or perhaps I'll just spend more time gazing out the window and sighing. Or gently stroking my desk and sighing. Or perhaps sighing and then hunting down and remonstrating with this person (subscription or enduring a Salon "ultramercial" required) for using the phrase "skew athwart the mainstream." Athwart! The mainstream! Why, it's almost sufficient to tumesce my dudgeon high enough to post on this and only this topic. She even puts her name in all lower case and is a Berkeley PhD candidate studying "sociable media." GRRRRRAARRRRR! NO! No! Serenity. Serenity now. Never mind. It's all going to be fine. I'm going to relax in a hot serotonin bath and forget about all this. There will definitely be at least a link dump a week, and occasional tirades otherwise. In the meantime, visit the fine folks to the left if you require replacement stimulants.

Barely a month ago, I touched a German billionaire. Shook his hand. It was a very billionairey grip. Yesterday, a duly appointed hatchet-girl from the billionaire's ongoing concern sent me the Dreaded Skinny Envelope of Death: You want to work for us? Nein! But we'll keep your resume on file, if by "on file," we mean "in the toilet." So, here I am back in the Bronx, and as they said in the McDonald's ads, I'm lovin' it. Join me, won't you, in our weekly journey through a host of pointless distractions from the banality of existence and the futility of striving for something better in life.

Getting to the root of lifelong sexual apprehension, this toon features a sad bunny complaining about his pitiful number of sexual conquests. What does our country need? Pretty money. And this has all the makings of a traditional Showtime at the Apollo humiliation-fest, but what do you know -- white boy can dance. (via)

Is there anything better than making a cartoon minx growl in German? I think not. And this is one of the best/worst things I've seen in a while. Really makes you think about the dangers of ... er, abuse. (via)

So I finally read Max Barry's Jennifer Government. I'd always liked that title, probably because it's a great double dactyl (DA-da-da DA-da-da, i.e. JEN-ni-fer GO-vern-ment). I may change my name to Christopher Government in fact.The book is set in a diztopian future where corporations run rampant, marketing leads to murder, and everyone takes their employer's name as their own last name (the title character is a government agent). Trust me, it's actually better than it sounds. Is it epoch-making literature? Searing social indictment? Radically conceived manifesto from the underground? Yes! Er, no.

But it is a very fun read, and though the concept sounds like secret porn for Michael Moore, its not as didactic as you'd think from my pat summary. Some of the non-crazy parts fall a little flat -- as in a cute and moppety daughter being too cute and moppety, and eventually, of course, too hostage-y -- but other bits of human interest ring surprisingly true. And I have to admit that I eventually just laid back and let the plot have its way with me. It was a little rough and I'm missing some jewelry, but the plot promised to call tonight, so I'm hopeful things will be different this time.

You can nose around the book and Max Barry's brain here. I note with interest that Section Eight Films, owned by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, is supposedly developing a movie based on the book. Must be fairly deep in Dev. Hell at the moment, as there's scant mention of the project elsewhere. Plus, it's hard to imagine the real corporations named in the book as being copasetic with having their names used in a movie version -- I mean, the villain is named "John Nike" for Chrissakes, and another villain actually gets impaled on a giant Nike swoosh. Guerilla marketing? You betcha.

On the morning of January 29, 1998, I was having a pre-commute cup of coffee in my apartment in the Five Points South neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama. I was startled by a sudden and very loud "BOOM!" from the near distance that rattled my windows. Four blocks away, a homemade bomb placed in front of an abortion clinic had just killed Robert Sanderson, an off-duty cop, and shredded the body and face of Emily Lyons, a nurse at the clinic. Police quickly cordoned off the nearby street where my car was parked. It was going to be a weird day.

I'm too lazy to search around and remind myself of all the facts (go do it yourself -- think of it as a little adventure), but if I recall correctly a witness saw Rudolph's truck speeding away from the scene and got his tag number. Ooops. Later, due to similarities in the bombs, Rudolph would also be charged for the Olympic Park bombing, plus bombings at another abortion clinic outside Atlanta and a gay nightclub inside Atlanta. When the Feds started looking for him, he went on the lam until he was captured in 2003 rummaging in a dumpster in Murphy, NC.

What you or I might describe as a "flight from justice" is more properly termed by Rudolph and his attorneys as a five-year-plus "camping trip." The problem is that the authorities went looking for Rudolph at his trailer in North Carolina. He hadn't been there for three or four days, and yet the front door was open (though the storm door was closed), and the TV was on. Hmmm. They deemed Rudolph a fugitive and his property abandoned, and so executed a search warrant. They found traces of explosives residue inside. Ooops.

Well, Rudolph's defense team would really like to invalidate that search warrant and that darn explosives residue evidence, so they claim Rudolph hadn't really abandoned his property. To quote the Birmingham News:

The defense said Rudolph had no existing plan to desert his residence. A last meal of a Burger King Whopper, Coke and fries and his purchase of $109 in food from a grocery store are evidence he had no intention to be in hiding, according to the defense.

Indeed! After all, what man could enjoy a Whopper, fries, and Coke and then hie himself off to the wilderness, forever cut off from such delights of civilization? Do you expect me to believe he didn't go back for an apple pie? And let me just say, as someone who knows whereof he speaks: $109 is a fuckload of groceries for a single man living alone. And it's an even bigger fuckload of groceries in North Carolina. Of course, if your plan is to elude a federal manhunt, one might purchase more staple items and fewer bachelor favorites like those wonderful tubes of chocolate chip cookie dough. Continuing:

"The fact that some lights were on, the front door was open but the storm door was closed and that Rudolph had not been in residence for three or four days is simply insufficient to justify any intrusion into the residence," the filing said.

Instead, the defense argued, all law enforcement could have known was Rudolph left on a lengthy camping trip and had been careless in locking his door and turning off his TV.

Not to mention careless in leaving all that explosives residue lying around. Well, I for one applaud this brilliant new legal strategy. Law enforcement must now demonstrate conclusively that any alleged fugitives are in fact fleeing, rather than merely camping. You're not against CAMPING, are you? Of course not. OJ in the white Bronco? Just going on a camping trip. Saddam? Campin' out in the spider hole. And when they finally track down Osama? He'll just look up, startled. "What? Were you guys looking for me? I was just doing a little camping here! Jeez."